


Soap Cutting

by WayFish



Series: Means But No End [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Clothing Porn, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Other, Praise Kink, References to Drugs, Rough Sex, Trans things, gender euphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WayFish/pseuds/WayFish
Summary: Joe pressed Nicky flat in their bed, took them gently by the wrist and arranged them just so. He angled the phone up high and took a picture. “I would very much like to fuck you in this pretty new dress.”“Now-” Nicky narrowed their eyes. There was a warning in that tone. “I haven’t even gotten the tags off. It was very expensive.”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Means But No End [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887112
Comments: 20
Kudos: 125





	Soap Cutting

**Author's Note:**

> post film  
> have i read the comic? nope  
> gender? I barely know 'er!

During takeoff Nicky put his hand on the inside of Joe’s thigh. They were looking at their phone, maybe unaware that they had even done it. There were days that Joe could not recall anything that happened before the year 2013. But just then he could cite the exact moment in 1936 that he left the ground in a DC-3 for the first time, and Nicky had held onto him then too.

“Do you know you do this thing?” said Joe. “When we’re in the air?”

“Sorry?” Nicky started to pull away.

“No it’s fine,” he said, threading his fingers with theirs. “You hold on if you need to.”

They rolled their eyes, went back to watching videos of manicured hands carving up brightly colored bars of soap on their phone. 

It was raining heavily when they arrived in Berlin. The sun wasn’t quite up. Slumped in the back seat of a cab from the airport Joe laid his head on Nicky’s shoulder.

Nicky pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “What would you like for breakfast?” they asked.

“You.” Joe laughed at his own joke. And they turned away, looking out the window. But he could tell that Nicky was smiling.

When he shoved open the door to their flat it caught on a stack of mail; bills, flyers, takeaway menus and a sizable tower of packages. 

Nicky dropped their bags on the hall carpet. “It’s here!” They scooped up the boxes and made for the bedroom. 

Joe locked the door, did up the chain and deadbolt. He decided that the bags could wait and left them where they laid. The air in the apartment was musty and Joe moved from room to room, turning on lights and pulling back curtains. Nicky was supposed to pay some kid downstairs to water the plants but the pathos and ficus and monstera were all withered. 

“That little shit killed my plants,” he called, but Nicky didn’t answer. At least the succulents seemed ok. 

They had been traveling for almost six months straight.

Nicky appeared behind him. “What do you think?” 

Joe did not entirely understand contemporary fashion. It made him sound old but he thought the clothing of this era was all aesthetic. There was no utility to it, no pragmatism.

Nicky though, they were smitten; always liking pictures of clothing on instagram and commenting on the outfits of people on the street. They had stripped down their black jockeys. At a glance the garment appeared to be a gray hooded sweatshirt. But then the sharp lines of corset boning caught Joe’s eye, the way it nipped in their waist and framed Nicky’s hips. They took a deep breath in, holding themselves straight and tall to do up the metal clasps at the front. When Nicky let the breath out they spilled over the corset’s top edge just a little. 

Joe did not understand the purpose of a hooded sweatshirt that was also a corset. But his heart did flutter at the sight of them. He set his mouth in a hard line. “How much did it cost?” 

Money had been no object for them for some time. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to tease them about it. Nicky pouted and turned away. “It was on sale.”

He followed them to the bedroom where there was a mess of packaging on the bed. Nicky stood in front of the large mirror by the wardrobe, going up on their toes, turning this way and that, arranging and rearranging the neck line. Joe pressed up behind them, fitting his hands on their waist. 

“Do up the laces?” they asked.

Joe kissed their cheek, curled the laces around his fingers and pulled them taut. “Remember the first time you wore something like this?”

Nicky huffed out a little laugh. “Everything comes back around.”

They spent a summer in Bordeaux some time in the 1760’s. Joe had occupied his time drinking, and brawling in the taverns near Port de la Lune, brooding because Andy had gone off on some charge without them. Nicky kept busy doing odd jobs; fixing wagon wheels, taking meals to people, mending the leaky roof of the boarding house that they were staying in. 

The place was run by a young widow. Going by her manner of dress and the coming and going of sailors from her private rooms Joe had guessed that she was in the sex trade. But that was none of his business. 

Nicky was always trying to reminding him that there were ways to uplift people that did not require a use of force.

One afternoon he’d stumbled into the boarding house to find Nicky in bed with the widow, laying close. Niccolo wore their hair long in those days and it was spread out on the pillows.They were laughing and Joe was ripped by he feeling that it must have been at his expense. 

He stormed out with tears in his eyes, and Nicky tailed him into the street.

“Please, mon amour. I’m begging you. My... curiosity overcame me. But it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Do not speak to me in innuendos,” Joe spat back. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you fucked her.”

Nicky caught him by the arm, spun Joe around to face them. “No. I said I wouldn’t, I swear.”

And that was when Joe saw them, that Nicky was wearing the widow’s clothes, a light blue patterned corset laced over gauzy underpinnings that shone bright white in the sunlight. Their hair hung loose about their face 

“It was just the... ” Nicky’s hands shook as they smoothed over the folds of the skirt. “It was only the clothing,” they said, in a low voice. “The fashions in this city, this time. I just wanted to know what it felt like and she let me try them on.”

A group of men walking by took their time looking Nicky over as they passed, quietly murmuring among themselves. One let out a low whistle. Joe wanted to eviscerate them on the spot. He took Nicky’s hands between his own, kissed their tear streaked cheeks. 

It was perhaps the first time they ever kissed like that, out in the open, in the daylight.

They went inside and Joe apologized to the widow. “I misunderstood the situation,” Joe tried to explain. “--wounded my own ego.” 

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” she said, very coy. “There is something special about that one.” And he was surprised when she embraced him, kissed him on both cheeks, as though she could see how much he needed it just then. 

Back in their room Joe helped Nicky undress.

“Well,” he asked. “What does it feel like?”

Nicky smiled, putting their hand on their hips, swaying and turning in the widow’s skirts. “Soft,” they said. “What do you think?”

Joe reached beneath the skirts, skimming his fingers along their inner thigh. “It does do something to me.”

In their apartment in the 21st century Joe made a space for himself amongst the cardboard and tissue paper on the bed and settled in to watch Nicky try on their new clothes. 

The rest of their haul-- Nicky liked watching youtube videos of “hauls” --included camel colored leather pants, a denim jacket painted with large concentric circles, a slouching hooded sweatshirt that hung almost to his knees, a pale pink dress dotted with strawberries that tied sweetly at the waist.

Joe was truly content to watch Nicky do just about anything. It was an unerring private thrill. He followed the curve of Nicky’s lower back, the line of their shoulders as they stepped into a sheer green dress that shimmered with beads and sequins. Joe focused hard on the details in case he wanted to get them down on paper later; the shade of their nipples beneath the fabric, the drape over their hips, the way that Nicky touched themselves, smoothing down the thin shoulder straps, 

They went by Nicole all the way up to the invention of the bicycle. It was too difficult to work the pedals in skirts and dresses and fine lace things. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to try it?" they asked.

They were at a safe house in Tehran. _Nicky_ was shaky at first but soon they were gliding through their courtyard, making lazy circles around the fruit bearing trees. 

Andy and Booker were watching, with some amusement from their spot in the shade. It was late afternoon and they were already well into a bottle of wine. “We’ll just watch I think!” 

He’d been wary of Booker in those early days. This new addition was shifting the dynamic of their team and Joe wasn’t sure that he liked it. Change made him nervous. “I don’t see the point,” Joe said, skeptical. “I don’t understand how it stands up like that.”

“It’s just a matter of balance.” 

Joe crossed their arms, trying to mask the anxiety that had churned up in their chest. He didn’t like how fast the thing went. Joe didn’t want them to fall. The fact that Nicky could not be physically hurt did not make it easier to watch them fall. “You do know this contraption is just a fad?”

“So?” Nicky was smiling wide.

“Well, it will come and go like everything else,” Joe insisted.

“Well, that’s it exactly!” Nicky laughed and skidded to a halt in front of him. “We get to see everything come and go,” they said, voice pitched low like they were telling him a secret. “We’re going to get to see so much. So much change. So much invention. And I want to try all of it. Everything. Every thing.”

Joe made an exasperated sound. He wanted to kiss their smiling mouth then, but they were interrupted. 

“Ok,” Booker called, clambering to his feet. “I want to try. I’m going to try.

With a little hop Nicky dismounted the metal contraption. “You’re going to love it,” they said. “I’ll help you. It’s easy, I promise.”

There were these other videos Nicky liked where people who called themselves artists would pendulum a leaking can of paint over large canvases, creating colorful concentric designs.

They turned back to the mirror, taking different poses, a three-quarter turn, canting their hips, taking pictures with their phone. Joe loved the way that Nicky looked in green. And he wondered if they had bought it for just that reason, because Joe would like it. The thought left a warm liquid feeling deep in his belly. 

Joe wasn’t sure that he understood this type of painting. The randomness of it all gave him a distinct sense of unease. It was difficult for him to imagine putting a mark on a canvas not knowing how it was going to turn out. 

He pushed all the discarded packaging to the floor. “Here, there’s better light. I’ll take a few for you.” 

“I thought you said selfies were-- what’s the word --solipsistic?” Nicky said. They looked suspicious but handed their phone over anyway. 

Joe pressed Nicky flat in their bed, took them gently by the wrist and arranged them just so. He angled the phone up high and took a picture. “I would very much like to fuck you in this pretty new dress.”

“Now-” Nicky narrowed their eyes. There was a warning in that tone. “I haven’t even gotten the tags off! And it was very expensive.”

“All the more reason to enjoy it, get our money’s worth.” Joe moved to kneel between their thighs, dragging them close, so their hips met his. All those sequins and beads made a soft rustling as they shifted beneath him. Joe curled his fingers under Nicky’s chin, angled their head to one side, held them there just so and took another picture. 

Joe thought he might understand why they liked the pendulum paint can videos. Nicky also moved through time and place in a compelling way. Nicky was also always dynamic, always idealist, turning and changing and building and building anew. 

Joe pressed his thumb to their bottom lip and Nicky opened up to him. “Maybe I could have you in my mouth then?” He took another picture. “Please? I just want to see you quivering in all this finery.” 

“You really think it looks pretty?” Nicky asked. Their eyelashes fluttered. There was a flush in their cheeks and they moaned sweetly as Joe slid a finger along the pink of their tongue. 

“Oh my love, don’t you know? You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

In 1976 they traveled to Washington DC to extort a member of the United States Senate. 

Though he had never tried it himself, Joe had a deep appreciation for performance art.There was this artist that he really loved, Carolee Schneeman. And Joe was trying to tell Andy about the time he had seen her perform a piece called Meat Joy in Paris. 

He had been completely captivated. Andy was a neoclassicist and she did not appear to find the prospect so intriguing. “You’re telling me,” she said, dryly “that these people roll around on the floor with raw meat? Why would you want to see that again?”

They were currently surveilling the senator as they took a clandestine meeting in some park. 

Meat Joy was of course not just people rolling on the floor with meat. It was strange and wonderful and made Joe think of the heat of hand to hand combat, which they had been doing less and less of since the invention of firearms. It reminded him of dancing at a wedding when he was a little boy. And group sex with pagans on the cold ground in Scotland. And learning to waltz with Nicky in Vienna.

“No, I mean, they’ll be doing something different.” Joe was not above pleading with Andy. He pressed his palms together at his chest. “The point is that we’re finished with this job in a few hours. We can take the train into the city, spend the night, fly out of New York and still be in Johannesburg by Sunday.”

The thing Joe enjoyed most about performance art was that it was ephemeral. He had seen empires rise and fall, people making the same mistakes, history repeating itself ad nauseum, et cetera. But a spectacle was, by its nature, once in a lifetime,. 

Booker piped up. He was manning the long range camera by the window. “You’ve been working us hard. Don’t you think we’ve earned a night off? We could go drinking, dancing. We haven’t been dancing in a while.” 

Nicky, who was sprawled in a chair with a book, had been quiet on the matter. Joe gave them a pleading look. They cleared their throat. “I’ll let you borrow those pants, boss. And do your eyeliner.”

“The tight black ones?” 

“Of course the tight black ones.” 

A few hours later they were on a train out of Maryland. “You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Nicky asked. 

“Very sure, you deserve to enjoy yourself”

Booker sprung for rooms in a hotel that was actually kind of high class. He ordered up bottles of wine and they listened to the radio while they preened and dressed. 

“I bet you don’t pay for one drink all night,” Joe said. Nicky had put on a very small dress and low heeled boots. They were carefully applying gloss to their lips. “You know, if you get any good offers you should feel free to go for it.” 

That made Nicky smile. “Booker picked the place so I doubt that will happen. You should also feel free. But meet me here after?” they asked. Nicky paused to shake out their hair, which they had recently dyed blonde. “I want to hear how it goes.” 

Joe kissed them and agreed. 

He took a cab to an art gallery in Chelsea. Schneemann performed a piece titled “Up to and Including Her Limits” which involved the artist being nude and suspended from the ceiling by a rope and harness with crayons in her hands. She floated gently in the air, leaving colorful streaks on the walls and floor as she moved and swayed and turned. Joe was thoroughly moved. 

A couple he met at the gallery-- an older woman and her younger boyfriend --asked if he wanted to get drinks after. And Joe indulged in flirting with them for a while but decided against it in the end. 

In Berlin the rain died down to a drizzle. 

Joe rucks the dress up over their hips and peeled down Nicky’s briefs. He takes Nicky in his mouth and decides to go slow, keep them teetering on the edge for a while, till they’re shaking and whining and complacent. 

He feels conflicted, looking at all the pale skin stretched out beneath him. Nicky can appear so young sometimes. Something about his face, untouched and beautiful. But Joe think’s it’s unfair too. He can see the pain they hold onto, the impact of all the violence and grief reverberating through them. Nicky has nightmares. But there’s no material proof, like it never happened. 

Joe bites and sucks at the inside of their thigh. The mark comes and goes.

He arrived at the hotel to find Booker and Nicky loitering in the hall outside their room. Whatever happened to them had healed over but there was still blood on Nicky’s face.

“I’m sorry,” they said. “I lost my key.” Nicky’s speech was thick and slurred. Teeth took a long time to grow in and some of theirs were broken. Their eyes were wide and darting. 

“My god, what--” Joe reached for them but Nicky pulled away. They snatched the keys from his hand and pushed into the room. “Nicky?”

They disappeared into the bathroom and the door snapped shut. 

Booker followed, heading for the mini bar to pour himself a drink. “He did some coke, so might be a little...” He made a vague gesture. “You know.” 

“No, I do not know,” Joe bit out. He still wasn’t sure if he liked Booker. He closed the door behind them. “What the hell is going on?”

“I didn’t see it. Lost track of him. But there was some guy giving him trouble I guess.” The way he said it was so casual, made it sound so minor. 

“You guess?” Joe didn’t realize that he was shouting, but he was suddenly shouting. “How could you let that happen?”

“What, was I supposed to watch him the whole time?”

Joe wanted to throw him out the goddamn window. “Yes, we’re supposed to watch out for one another! It's not always safe for people like Nicky, to be alone and out, you know that!” 

Now Booker was shouting too. “Apologies but I was otherwise occupied!”

“Doing what? Doing blow and getting sloppy drunk?”

The bathroom door clicked open and Nicky stuck their head out. “Can I-- can you help me get out of this?”

Joe took a breath to steady themselves. “Of course.” He turned back to Booker. “Where the fuck is Andy?”  
  


“She said she was going to take care of it.”

Nicky’s dress was bloodied and the zipper was stuck. They threw it in the trash. “Were you killed?” Joe asked.

“No.” Nicky still wouldn’t look him in the eye. “What did you mean ‘people like me’?”

“I didn’t know you heard that.” Joe picked some pieces of gravel and maybe bone out of their hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“You were right though,” they said, laughing a little. “Didn’t pay for a drink the whole night.”

Joe kept his distance while they cleaned up. He got them one of the overly fluffy hotel robes from the closet and turned down the bed for them. “I can go, if you need some space,” he offered. “Whatever you need.” 

“Don’t be stupid.” Nicky said, and pulled him into bed.

Andy arrived back at their hotel in the early hours of the morning. She would never admit it, but Nicky is her favorite. Joe didn’t mind, Nicky was his favorite too. Joe tensed when she opened the door, holding Nicky tight against his chest in the dark. 

“Booker?” She took off her boots and got into bed beside them.

“He fucked off, probably for the best.”

Andy nodded. “How’s the kid?”

“Been out for a while.” Joe’s chest felt tight, and his voice faltered. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t feel like he got to cry in this situation. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have come here.”

They were all family but it was different between the two of them. She doted on Nicky in her own way. Nicky could always make her laugh.

“Self pity doesn’t help anyone. Especially them.” she said. “I know it’s easy to forget it. But we’re subject to chaos just like everyone else. There are things you can’t control. And there’s nothing you could have done.”

“They won’t tell me what happened. Booker said you were taking care of it? What does that mean?”

“It means I took care of it. I’m sure Nicky will tell you the rest when they’re ready.” She reached over to check the clock on the bedside table. “Have you slept at all?”

“Of course not.” 

Nicky stirred then, turning in Joe’s arms, pulling away from them. “You’re back?” they murmured, pressing their cheek to hers. “Are you alright, Boss?”

Andy cradled their face in her hands, kissed Nicky right between the eyes. “Everything is fine. Go back to sleep.” She reached over, ran her fingers through Joe’s hair, urging him gently to put his head on the pillows. “Everyone just try to sleep.”

Nicky spent and Joe took them gently by the throat, spitting it back into their soft and eager mouth. It dripped down their chin and chest and Nicky keened, arching up to kiss him messily. 

Joe laughed, breathless, thumbing the corners of his mouth clean. “What a heathen you are.” And Nicky groaned and laughed too.

Centuries ago, on a cold and grey morning, they asked him, “Do you not understand?” and slit their own throat on Yusuf’s blade. They were standing so close that his lips might have brushed theirs. Their blood steamed and pooled in his hands and as their body fell Yusuf thought oh, but those are such beautiful and sad eyes.

The green dress would have to go to the cleaners. Nicky lazed in bed while Joe moved around the room, gathering up their detruse. “Home five minutes and you’ve already made such a mess,” he said. “All this shopping and you didn’t get me anything!”

“That’s not true.” Nicky tilted their chin towards one of the larger parcels. Inside Joe found a grey quilted coat. “You took a bullet through your other good jacket,” they said with a shrug. “It’s an Alexander Wang.”

Joe did not know who that was but the coat was handsome. There was also a soft mustard yellow sweater, a couple pairs for jeans, a sharp blue button front shirt. He’d probably live in nothing but bullet riddled clothes if it weren’t for them. “My love, you’re so good to me.”

“And the other one, the small one,” Nicky said. “I thought you should get to open it.”

It was a small square box. Joe opened it and let out a barking laugh. He shook the hat free of it’s tissue paper packaging- it was purple and white with the Toronto Raptors logo embroidered on the side -and smashed it down on his curls. “It’s just like the one I lost in Seoul!”

“I know!”

In 1932 Nicky’s favorite gay club- Zur Katzenmutter, Mother Cat -was raided and shut down the Prussian Police. They were both arrested.

“Have you always... Were you like this, before?” Nicky asked. They had been sitting on the hard floor of a holding cell for almost a full day. 

Andy was hopefully coming to get them. She wanted them to stay in Germany, she felt like they were most needed there. “Like what?” 

“Did you always prefer the company of people like me?” they hissed. “Other men?”

“There’s no one like you,” Joe said, just to infuriate them. “And you’ve already asked me that question. Don’t you remember?”

Nicky frowned. “Have you noticed? Some of the neighbors, they’ve been gone for a few days,” they said.

Joe was starting to get antsy. Things were escalating beyond their influence. He wanted out of the cramped cell. He wanted off this fucking continent. “I know, love. I know.” 

One of the girls who performed at the bar, a friend of Nicky’s, had been badly beaten on the face and head. Joe had treated her the best he could, staunching the worst of her wounds with part of his shirt. She was laid in Nicky’s lap, asleep. They curled her dark hair around a finger, considering. “When? When did I ask you?”

“Not sure, early days probably.” Joe wondered absently if Nicky thought of themselves that way, as just any other man. “In a tent somewhere in some desert. One of the first times we fucked I think.”

What Joe likes most about the future is the automation of things. Or perhaps the near automation?

He left Nicky to sleep a while and wandered out into the kitchen. In the time it takes him to heat water for a cup of tea Joe orders groceries from an app on his phone. There’s no more of this hunting, growing, foraging business. He scrolls through his contacts to find ‘Berlin Plug, Emily’ and sets up a delivery in just a few texts. He sends Berlin Plug, Emily €200 via paypal.

Joe knows that there’s still a human cost, there are lots of hands that get the kombucha and organic blueberries and hummus and oven bake pizzas and sun chips to his door. He tries to tip well and always be polite. 

Joe fired up his PS4, turned his Raptors cap around backwards and played Call of Duty until his drugs and groceries arrived. 

It was difficult to say exactly where, boundaries always being drawn and redrawn as they were. But in a tent somewhere in some desert, not so long after they had met, Yusuf laid his head on their chest. He lavished their dusky pink nipples with his tongue. 

“Have you always been like this,” they asked. 

Yusuf smiled wolfishly. “If you intend to insult me, my prophet or my country again then you might consider that I have you in my mouth.”

The thing growing between them was delicate at that time, fickle and ill tempered. 

They shook their head. “No, I mean to say-” Their arabic was wasn’t very good back then. “Have you been with other men?”

Yusuf set his teeth to their taut heated skin. “Is that what you people think of us? That our men fuck one another?”

They went quiet and very still. Yusuf looked up into those eyes and they were wide and glassy.

Both of them had been led to believe that if they pleased their Gods then they would attain glory and favor in death. And now they knew only two things; neither of them could die, and that they were alone yet together in this strange and terrible condemnation. 

“Have you been with other men?” Yusuf asked slowly, softly. And nothing. “Women?”

Yusuf didn’t know much about this person beyond their brute strength. But he could tell that they were a true believer. They blinked hard, tears spilling down their cheeks and looked up into the darkness of their shared tent. 

“Do you think we’re being punished? For being like this?”

He considered saying something cruel about eternity with them being punishing but decided against it. Yusuf wiped the tears from their face and kissed them.

“I fear that I’ve wounded you,” he said. "It was not my intention." And Nicolo cried and laughed and kissed him back. 

He liked to turn the sound off on the television and put music on when he plays video games. 

Joe felt stupid for not having listened to Frank Ocean until Nile insisted. He’d secretly held suspicions that his music was all hype. But Joe was willing to admit when he was wrong. He loved that one song with that one part that goes, ‘all this drillin got the dick feelin like a power tool’ and that other song with that one part that went, ‘did you call me from a seance?/you are from my past life’.

Joe doesn’t feel like getting up to turn on a light so the living room dimmed as the sun went down. 

Nicky shuffled out of the bedroom and dropped down on the sofa beside him. “What time is it?”

“Couldn’t say. Do you want me to...?” Call of Duty wasn’t going well. Joe was probably getting his ass handed to him by teenagers.

Nicky waved him off. They clocked the array of little glass jars on the table. Berlin Plug Emily did only reusable packaging and Joe appreciated that sort of thing. They picked up the jar with psilocybin in it and rattled them around. “For Moab, with Nile? That’s going to be fun.”

Joe was gunned down and they tossed the game controller to the other end of the sofa. “Yes, and some other things. I got a treat for you.” 

They were going to spend the last few weeks of spring in the Berlin apartment. 

Joe had bought this apartment outright in the twenties. Then over time the building. The sheer number of wars it had survived made it Joe’s favorite of the properties they owned. It was strange, Joe thought, that buildings could be so fragile. He rented the other units for cheap as artist live and work spaces. Joe wasn’t great at keeping up on things like exchange rates or property value. The kid who was supposed to water the plants, his mother did work in video and photography.

Early in the summer months they would meet with Nile to go mountain biking in Utah. She had never done mushrooms but had talked big game about working as a bike messenger in Chicago when she was a teenager. It was going to be fun. After that they would go to Pride in Brazil. Andy would probably come. Then Tokyo. Then they would float around the Mediterranean for a while. 

Nicky found the jars of medicated honey and peanut butter, they’re favorite. “You’re a prince,” they said.

Some time in the early aughts they worked and job in the suburbs of Colorado near NORAD . They were staying in an entirely average condo in an entirely average neighborhood. The closest strip mall contained a gas station, psychic readings, a Chinese buffet, a payday loans place. Nicky and Joe were sitting opposite in a booth at the buffet. The tv mounted to the wall was turned to some daytime talk show. The text on the screen flashed ‘She’s actually a man...!?’. Nicky stabbed their plate loudly with a fork.

Andy and Booker were deep in talks about something or other and didn’t seem to notice. Joe reached for their hand, but Nicky stood abruptly. “Getting some air,” they announced. 

Joe stood too. “Yeah, be back in a few minutes.” 

Andy and Booker, who probably thought they were going somewhere to fuck, gave them a dismissive look and went back to whatever it was they were talking about. Nicky was already gone and out the door. Joe shrugged on his coat. They were in front of the palm readers shop by the time Joe caught up to them. 

“What is going on?”

Nicky stuffed their hands in their pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. “New York,” they said. “1976?”

Joe nodded. “Carolee Schneemann. I remember.” 

“I went into an alley with a guy I thought had been flirting with me. He put it in my mouth and told me I was an ugly faggot.” 

Joe felt like he’d been punched in the chest. Nicky sniffed, looked at their shoes. 

“I was high and he just started kicking me. And the people on that that show? Is that what I am? All those names people were calling them? And they’re saying it’s unnatural. Yusuf, we’re already so unnatural. I don’t think I’ve ever just known what I am,” they said, voice spiraling up into panic. “Other people seem to just know. And I just try to do what feels right. But it’s not right. He said I was ugly--”

Joe put his arms around them, pulled Nicky in against him. They stood that way, quiet for a moment, swaying a little in the purple neon store lights. “You never told me that. I thought you would never tell me.”

Nicky shook their head “I was afraid. I thought if we talked about it you would think... I didn’t know what you would think. I thought it was my fault, for being like this.” 

Joe was still feeling sore about the plants and he took Nicky around the apartment to show them the damage. Nicky humored him, extending their deepest condolences. 

They moved into the kitchen and Joe pulled together some things to make tacos. He put chilies on the stove to blister, started cutting onions and garlic. Nicky rolled a joint and sat at the bar fiddling with their phone, watching those soap videos again. 

“Please,” Joe took a long draw and let it out slowly. “You have to tell me what you like about those.”

Nicky thought on it for a long moment. “The hands are so soft but their knives are so sharp. And things appear to be solid but then they fracture into smaller parts.” 

In Malta, Joe isn’t really sure which time, they manage to find a piece of rocky beach just for themselves. Nicky spends the day swimming and poking around the tide pools while Joe stretched out on a blanket with his paper and nib of charcoal pencil. Sometimes he sketches and sometimes he writes things down, bits of marginalia, things he doesn’t want to forget. 

“I think I should like to be a sea creature,” Nicky said. “Just float around all day.” They stretched out beside him, damp and naked.

“But then how would we fuck?” Joe said, in a serious tone.

Nicky closed their eyes, tipped their face toward the sun. “Oh I’m sure sure I would still have holes and appendages. Sea creatures generally do.”

Joe laid down their pencil and paper. “I do like that appendage. And your holes are a beautiful thing. I suppose it could work out.”

“Beautiful, really?” Nicky batted their lashes. 

He made a noncommittal noise. “Hm, let me see it. Just to be sure.”

They may have finished with killing one another, but some days there was still a battle of wills waged between them. Nicky rolled onto their front, knee cocked to one side. They could still be shy, still nervous about their body and their bodies together. They were also not one to back down from a challenge. 

Joe bit his lip, held his breath as they held themselves open. He ran his knuckles over the fine hair on their back side and teased their opening with the pad of his thumb. The muscles in Nicky’s shoulders tensed and roiled. 

“Yes,” Joe said. “It is very lovely.”

“I think I should like to be just an ‘it’.” Nicky pushed back into their touch. “I would like to be your ‘thing’.”

“Until death should us part?” Joe laughed at his own joke. 

Nicky gave him a petulant look. “Until I decide that I should like to be something else.”

Joe slapped them hard across the ass and he plunged into them with his tongue and fingers. 

They ate tacos together on the sofa. Joe watched them closely, their teeth and their jaw and the way they licked hot sauce from their fingers.

Nicky had dressed exclusively in those clothes which tended to signal manhood since the 1980s. But lately they had been making a different variety of purchases, things that signaled something else. 

They became aware that they were being watched. “What?”

Joe held his hands up in surrender. “Nothing!” 

Nicky hung the clothes in their closet but didn’t wear them yet. They hadn’t talked about it. Joe assumed they would tell him when they were ready. 

They put on a movie and Nicky was asleep before it was even halfway over. Joe shuffled them back into bed. 

They left Booker standing by the river front and Joe excused himself to the bathroom. 

Nicky trailed behind him, wordlessly. Joe pissed and washed his hands.

“You’re very tense,” they said. 

"I’m fine.” This was a lie of course. He hit the button on the hand dryer too hard. He was furious, rage coiled up in his belly with no place to go. 

“You’re not.” Nicky put a hand on his shoulder, pressing gently, encouraging the muscle there to relax. 

Funny thing about preternatural healing and immortality, it didn’t do shit to prevent stress related back pains or tension headaches. Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe he sold us out like that. Let them hurt you like that. ”

“Would it make you feel better to hit something?”

Joe stroked their cheek. “Maybe? You offering?”

Nicky nuzzled into his palm. “Maybe.” 

“I don’t like it when people take my things,” Joe said, and smacked them hard across the face. Nicky gasped and laughed. He caught them by their hair, pulled hard, hit them again. “This is mine. People just can’t take my things.” 

“Yours,” Nicky sighed. “Feel better, love?”

Joe released them, straightened up, his shoulders relaxing. “Immensely.”

Nicky slumped against the bathroom sink. “That last one made my eyes water.” They were still laughing when Joe kissed them. 

They both gathered themselves, went back out to the table and sat down to finish their drinks. 

Nile giggled and Andy rolled their eyes in disgust. “You two are insufferable.”

Before Joe is really awake he becomes aware that he is being watched. He lays very still as Nicky kisses him softly, rubs their cheek against his beard. “Let me know how you want your eggs,” they said. Their warmth pulled away and they rolled out of bed. 

Joe listened to them clatter around in the kitchen for a while. But it was the smell of coffee that finally got him on his feet. Nicky smiled as he shuffled into the room, took down a mug from the cupboard for him. “You hungry?” they asked. 

Joe snatched them by the waist and set his teeth to the curve of their neck. “Starving!” He growled and laughed at his own joke. 

They ate their breakfast and drank their coffee at the dining room table. It was decided that they would run errands that day. Nicky wanted some new things to read. Joe needed a new sketch book and was secretly hoping that in their travels they would find a place where he could buy more plants. 

Joe gathered up the dishes while Nicky went to shower. He put on a clean shirt and jeans and loitered in the doorway while Nicky fretted over what to wear. After discarding a few options they put on the over sized sweatshirt that they had unpacked the day before. It read PSYCHE across the front in big block letters.

“Weather app says to expect more rain today,” he told them,

Nicky nodded and went into the bathroom to put on a pair of black tights. “I”m borrowing your shoes,'' they announced, taking Joe’s favorite pair of black ankle boots from the closet. 

They stood in front of the mirror looking themselves over for a long time. 

“Do you like it?” Nicky asked finally.

Joe thinks they look quite girlish in such a short dress. But also boyish with the big black boots and sleeves pushed up to their elbows. “It does do something to me. But do you like it.?”

Nicky cocked their head to the side. “I... don't know. Somewhere in the middle. Good.”

Joe grabbed a jacket and his Raptors cap. Nicky put on a big pair of sunglasses and they were ready to go.

“If someone gives me a bad look,” Nicky said, “I’m wearing khakis for the next 25 years.” 

Joe locked the apartment behind them. “If I see that kid I’m giving them hell about my dead plants.”

**Author's Note:**

> by order of appearance: 
> 
> \- Unravel Project+ Agent Provocateur cutout lace-up cotton-terry hoodie  
> \- The Attico tapered leather pants  
> \- Ganni bleached denim jacket  
> \- McQ PSYCHE hoodie dress  
> \- Lirika Matoshi strawberry dress  
> \- Dyspnea nineties naomi dress in green  
> \- Alexander Wang grey puffer jacket


End file.
